


I could write a love story

by thedorkygirl



Category: Original Work
Genre: Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 23:46:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20072596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedorkygirl/pseuds/thedorkygirl
Summary: I didn’t understand how very commonplaceand complicated love is in the flesh.





	I could write a love story

I could write a love story before I was in love.  
Ironic, isn’t it? I knew all the words  
to describe the longing and the pain,  
to weave the cloak of happiness  
that a kiss and caress could bring.  
I idolized the selfless love and heart-breaking  
separation for the good of plot.

I didn’t understand how very commonplace  
and complicated love is in the flesh.  
I had taken the love I had for my family  
and for my pets - and I loved them dearly,  
my cats, and my family - and I transformed  
it into something vaguely dissimilar so that  
I could say that this is love, here on my paper.

But love - romantic love - is different. You don’t  
choose it, but you do. You can’t choose your family,  
and you can’t choose chemistry. There’s always  
a man who likes me so much that I turn  
a corner when I see him; there’s always another  
man who I could love as a second place, and  
it’s a willing sort of love, a growing sort of love.

Then there’s the love I wrote on paper: it’s not  
quite the same, because I never did understand  
how wholly it took over good sense. Never grasped  
the idiocy of love until I believed in the future he  
wanted so much, saw his big dreams and pushed  
myself aside and didn’t place myself in them.

What a stupid sort of love, the sort that creeps  
off ink and into my blood like I created it myself.  
I did not ask for its manifestation - I didn’t want  
to feel my fingers threaded through his own  
as if we were stitching our lives together.

Maybe the bindings are too thin for him to feel,  
but they’ve knotted me to him, and it’s out of a book.  
And this is why I have a second place love;  
because I do not trust myself to write a wrong  
love and not have it make me its puppet.

I could love a good man; I can write a good man.  
Of the other sort, the dashing pirate or the  
scoundrel vigilante, I refuse to contemplate.  
There is too much silly mirroring in my life  
to play with those sort of characters.


End file.
